Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Agreed the V-2 Osprey is faster max 316 mph and they would overlap quite a bit. The niche this could possibly fill would be as a replacement for a stealth black-hawk. Hopefully more maneuverable than the osprey in hover mode and much faster than the blackhawk's top horizontal speed.

KentuckyFC writes: "One of the greatest mysteries in science is why we don't see quantum effects on the macroscopic scale; why Schrodinger's famous cat cannot be both alive and dead at the same time. Now one theorist says the answer is because P is NOT equal to NP. Here's the thinking: The equation that describes the state of any quantum object is called Schrodinger's equation. Physicists have always thought it can be used to describe everything in the universe, even large objects, and perhaps the universe itself. But the new idea is that this requires an additional assumption — that an efficient algorithm exists to solve the equation for complex macroscopic systems. But is this true? The new approach involves showing that the problem of solving Schrodinger's equation is NP-hard. So if macroscopic superpositions exist, there must be an algorithm that can solve this NP-hard problem quickly and efficiently. And because all NP-hard problems are mathematically equivalent, this algorithm must also be capable of solving all other NP-hard problems too, such as the traveling salesman problem. In other words, NP-hard problems are equivalent to the class of much easier problems called P. Or P=NP. But here's the thing: computational complexity theorists have good reason to think that P is not equal to NP (although they haven't yet proven it). If they're right, then macroscopic superpositions cannot exist, which explains why we do not (and cannot) observe them in the real world. Voila!"

I Learned something new today. I had never heard of a "Michigan Left". It does seem like it would be safer for pedestrians and allow for a longer green light. The drawback being that to make a left turn you must first make one right turn going the wrong direction, change lanes to the left and then make a u-turn. I think I would find myself planning my route to avoid left turns if possible.

Agreed, in Houston, I often look ahead to see the crosswalk timer to decide if I need to speed up to make the green or slow down because I won't make the green. As a manual transmission driver I find I pay more attention to things like that in an attempt to minimize coming to a complete stop.

Not sure how many of these are reachable behind the WSJ paywall. But I find it interesting how the WSJ publishes climate change minimizing articles in there "opinion" section and promotes them heavily on their site. At the same time also has excellent well written articles not as easy to find on the climate change in there hard news section.

You can go to the bottom of the report page 38 for a chart and review the differences in the between a "low emission mitigation scenario" RCP 2.6 (one that we try to help the problem) and a high emission scenario (where we keep on keepin on.) RCP 8.5.

While temps go up for both, the mitigation scenario leads to a much more livable planet, closer to the one we live in today. the difference between scenarios is stark, an average of 3C difference by 2100. Children born today could easily live to see 2100, they would be 86 years old. So for me in Houston TX that means a hot summer day that was 100F will be 105.5F. The mitigation scenario could reverse the warming trend as early as 2050. You are correct that even the best case scenario doesn't allow for a return to current temperatures by 2100. In my mind the question is how long until we realize we our saving our own skins and make some hard decisions. Everybody want's a livable planet, but nobody want's to be the first to make the sacrifice.

As a contractor, your job is to make the project work. If you can make an employee look good, all the better. As far as your concern for misplaced congratulations... I quote Don Draper, "That's what the money is for!"

Yeah. I bet he was the only one (or a very few) at the time on Harvard's wifi and TOR. Then some good old fashioned police work, by telling the suspect some well crafted white lies closed the case. ie (we know what you did, sign this confession and make your life easier.) Unless I missed it, the court document never said they traced the specific message to him. Just him to TOR and TOR to the email. Then he admitted to it. At any rate, I'm glad they caught him. There are easier ways to avoid taking a test.

I wonder if they sent a mouse or appropriate sized o2 to co2 animal how long the seeds could grow. I guess you'd also need a heater to keep the mouse alive in the cold of space. They could send a little bit of radioactive material to help regulate the temp. It just seems a shame to go all the way to the moon for a 5 day experiment.

Couldn't agree more on the co-Authored books sucking. Talk about the definition of sell out. I love Tom Clancy and I have most of the "co-authored books" I got them as gifts from well meaning family. I don't even consider them TC books.

Cardinal in the Kremlin is one of my favorites. I love the old soviets for bad guys and space lasers whats not to like.

I think it's a great idea, although I would have chosen Empire. But after seeing and hearing the bluray quality of the remastered ep4 I hope they use the new remastered bluray audio. Heck I know every line from that movie backwards and forward from my misspent youth, I could probably still enjoy the film in Navaho. I sometimes enjoy watching it in foreign languages. If you watch the bluray in a non English language the initial crawl text is in that language, not just subtitled, but the actual crawl is in the foreign language. It would be good publicity for Lucasfilm / Disney to take the Navaho text and run it through their crawl macro for free. Lucasfilm used to be super touchy about this sort of thing, maybe Disney could be more magnanimous.

As another user replied to me, I was wrong when I asserted the first line about "companies legally and ethical responsibility". However I still think my conclusion stands that any company should do what it can under the law to not pay taxes it doesn't owe.

I know if i have a deduction that I can legally take on my own taxes I don't even consider for a second whether or not it's a good deduction for the country, I just say the law says I can take it, so I take it. I don't feel good or bad about it, I didn't write the law.

Today congress said Apple had broken no law and under oath Tim Cook said he believed Apple acted ethically.

>What about legal and ethical responsibilities to employees, customers, community, and environment?Companies are there to make money. Full stop. Those other things only come into it when it's in the company's best interest, (Which I think it often is.) Charities are there to help with those other things, and for there selflessness, they don't have to pay federal tax.

Japan's economy also has some really horrific problems when downturns happen the 90s and the 00s. In the US we lay people off quickly and the economy tends to recover much quicker vs japan. Our workforce is mobile and often times moves from a part of the country with no jobs to an area with more jobs. In Japan as you point out the companies tend to keep the people employed longer and drag the whole economy down for decades at a time.

I would argue the differences in the US and Japanese economy are due to a multitude of factors the least of which is the country's tax policy and the corporations methods to reduce that liability.

The best solution in my mind is not to blame company's following the law but instead blame our government for the poor tax laws and loopholes. It is not hard to write laws without loopholes, a simpler tax code could give all companies an equal footing and reduce these types of issues. Unfortunately *Passing* such tax reform into law doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.